


Chatting with Dragons

by Sour_Idealist



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Dragon Lio Thymos, Ficlet, M/M, Twitter Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:35:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29766660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: Lio encounters a very unusual knight.
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Comments: 4
Kudos: 60





	Chatting with Dragons

**Author's Note:**

> By Scotty's request. If you think you know what the title is in reference to, you're probably right.

"Leave this place, knight," the dragon growls, letting green flame lap around the stranger's greaves. "There are no princesses to rescue here, no treasure to claim. Run back to your king and tell him the mountains will never be his."

"I'm not looking for a princess!" the knight declares. "I'm Sir Galo Thymos, Paladin of the Order of the Flame, and I'm here to rescue Thyma of Creek's Bend!"

The dragon blinks. "Thyma the cheesemaker?"

"I -- huh." Sir Galo tries to scratch the back of his head and is foiled by his helmet. Lio muffles a snort deep in his throat, though fire still flares in his nostrils. Sir Galo seems unbothered. "They didn't tell me what she does for a living. How many Thymas do you have up here?"

"One," Lio says, a little indignantly, "and she came here by choice. I wasn't expecting pursuit for a cheesemaker."

"Oh, well, if she's only a cheesemaker, you won't mind letting her come home, will you?" Sir Galo says triumphantly, and then frowns. "Wait, so _do_ you have other people up here? Are you going to kidnap more? Because if you do, I should probably fight you anyway."

The dragon's massive eye rolls, glittering orange and pink like a fresh-molten caldera. Hopefully it's intimidating, because Lio is beginning to feel that he has lost the thread of this conversation. Sir Galo has his hand on his sword again, troublingly unintimidated. "I do not kidnap people," Lio says. Why he bothers saying this to a knight of Promepolia he can't say, since he won't be believed, but this seems to be a very strange knight. "I shelter them. And I am not the one who thinks a cheesemaker is unimportant. That's your king."

"Uh, no?" Sir Galo says, as if Lio is a small child who has just put forth a half-babbled argument. "His Majesty cares for all his people. That's what I'm for!" He slams his fist into his chest, clanging off his breastplate. "I'm His Majesty's first knight-errant in service to the people!"

"He's about two decades late," Lio growls. "No one has come after a peasant before, to say nothing of what they flee from."

"Well..." Sir Galo considers. "You said you don't kidnap people, right? So maybe the other times everyone understood that, and this was just a misunderstanding!" He pauses. "I'd like to talk to Thyma herself, though, if that's okay. You know, to be sure."

"You want to --" Lio stops himself here, with an effort. Thyma is of his hoard, in that she is his to shelter and treasure and keep safe, but he cannot guard his people as jealously as he could guard a more traditional hoard of gold. He will not allow this strange knight or anyone else to take any of his people anywhere they do not wish to go, but he cannot actually forbid strangers even to look at them. They belong also and first to themselves. Besides, even if they were not people, Sir Galo surely doesn't know how intimate a thing he asks. "Very well," he says at last, with difficulty. "But you will leave your armor and your sword at the entrance to the cave." 

"Well... okay." The knight shrugs and starts unstrapping his sword. Lio considers.

"Do you require assistance removing your armor?"

"Huh? Oh, no, it's just a chain shirt and a cuirass. And my greaves and helmet, obviously." He sticks out one foot, as if Lio might not have noticed the greaves. "Which is good, 'cause I don't have a squire or anything. Sir Aina just knighted me." Evidently, in Sir Galo's mind, he and Lio chat now.

He sheds his armor quickly, matter-of-factly, though he takes the time to arrange it (and shield, and sword) safely and neatly among the stones. Lio considers what to do next. He could shift forms, and bring Sir Galo along the mountain path that his people travel as they please. It would be less awkward. But, narrow and defensible as the path is, nonetheless he would prefer that it remain unknown to strangers. Even very earnest strangers. The other way, then.

"Step up," he says to Sir Galo, once the knight is ready, and stretches out one foreclaw. Galo glances uncertainly from the gleam of Lio's claws and back to his face, all doubt for the first time. Tiresome, this human fear. Except what Sir Galo says is, "So, wait, I just.... step on you? That doesn't seem very polite." 

Lio blinks again, slowly. "How else do you mean to get on my back?" he asks. "Do you want to be carried in my claws like a dead cow?"

"No, probably not. Okay. Just, um, just let me know if I do something uncomfortable." Galo crawls carefully up Lio's leg to his shoulder. His touch is small, almost ticklish, and his caution makes Lio oddly aware of it. Galo's weight settles where it ought, just where Lio's neck meets his body.

"Don't fall," Lio warns, craning his head around. He's not sure why he bothers. Sir Galo nods, though, taking hold of one gleaming iridescent spine. Lio has always liked the tug of a rider holding on; a gentle pressure, a bit like fingers in his hair in human form.

"I'm a really great rider, don't worry," Galo says. Lio snorts, but at least the man is holding on.

"We'll see," he says, and spreads his wings. Galo gasps behind him, but it doesn't sound like fear. Lio's wings _are_ spectacular, he knows, in all their colors.

He's not prepared, as he takes to the sky, for the easy shift in Galo's weight to keep himself flush to Lio's back, moving with him. He's certainly not prepared, as the ground drops away below them, for the whoop of pure ear-splitting unselfconscious joy. Galo's voice rings off the mountains, bright as the high noon sun, and it catches at Lio's attention like light on diamonds set in gold. 


End file.
